When theaters close their doors, there’s always one light left onstage, called a ghost light. Today, there are ghost lights in venues around the world, and not just places where plays and musical entertainments take place. Planetarium domes and science centers closed their doors, too. That began in mid-March. It was like watching the lights go out in these special places. And, as of today, they remain out. Did they, too, leave on “ghost lights”?

As I write this, a very few such places are reopening. Most remain closed to the public. Some are closed to everyone, including their workers. Several big institutions, such as the Adler Planetarium in Chicago and the American Museum of Natural History in New York, went through massive layoffs in mid-May. And, there will be others letting people go. Places that have lasted this long, but find that they can’t sustain their already-bare staff levels.

So, when the reopenings do speed up, it could be weeks, months, or possibly up to a year or more for the majority of facilities. They’re not the most essential places to reopen first, and I think most people understand that. We have to take care of the basic needs of food and medicines, first. That’s a priority. But, soon, I hope, we’ll be able to bring our cultural and scientific institutions back online. That includes planetarium domes.

The ones that do open their doors (whenever they do) will be operating under very changed “rules of engagement.” Social distancing requires that people remain six feet apart, that they wear masks, and that they take all precautions to avoid sharing any possible infection with others. That’s a tall order for a planetarium or a hands-on science museum. Probably also true for art galleries, too. It may well nigh be impossible for some facilities to achieve. And, so they could remain closed.

I’ve worked for years in and out of domes and science centers, on fulldome shows and exhibitions. So, I keep tabs on what my colleagues are thinking and doing. Many are friends and people I care about. We all share common goals of bringing the wonder of science to visitors.

When the closures began, many of us hopped online to socialize and discuss the aspects of the shutdowns. We bond via social media, on Zoom, and in other online spots. The overwhelming question we’re all asking isn’t different from what everyone wants to know about other public places: “when will we (collective “we”) reopen?”

The answers are not easy. School facilities may not reopen until their schools do, and some schools aren’t opening until this fall or next spring. Others may not utilize their planetariums for quite some time. Same with university domes. With some colleges and universities delaying the full implementation of “in-person” classes either til fall or next spring, it could be a while before some of those domes reopen.

Reopening the Darkened Domes and Museums

There are a great many variables that complicate a re-opening effort. Social distancing and masking are just two of them. How do staff members keep safe, especially if they will be dealing with the public daily? Who cleans the exhibits and the theaters? How do facilities sell tickets safely? How many people can safely fit in a gallery or a dome? Will schools want to send field trips to museums like they used to? If so, when? What’s an institution’s liability if someone comes in with the virus and spreads it around? If they’re asymptomatic, how would anyone know? Not everyone has a fever at first, for example.

To be sure, the science of understanding this virus is incomplete—and, it mutates. We’re just now finding out that it can badly affect children. In the early days, it seemed like kids were more immune than older adults. Now, we know they can sustain damage that will last their whole lives. As long as the virus keeps spreading, that may well affect people’s attitudes about going back to museums and science centers. And so, that leads to the question, “what if we reopen and nobody comes in?” It’s a real fear.

Yes, reopening institutions is important, for sound educational reasons. In addition, institutions have budgets, and those budgets are now severely challenged as revenue streams dry up. I read an article last month that perhaps a third of institutions may not reopen this year, or ever, for a variety of reasons. That’s a huge cultural, scientific, and educational loss to any country that supports the educational and cultural activities that these places provide us.

When Will People Come Back?

People at planetariums, science centers, museums, and other such facilities look to each other, their institutions, and surveys, to figure out when they can reopen. For the past couple of months, researcher Colleen Dilsenschneider has been surveying “audience intent” to find out when people might be interested in heading back to museums and other similar cultural institutions. Her report shared on May 11, showed at least a positive upturn in people’s intentions to return sometime within one to three months of this calendar year. In weeks prior to that, the intentions were less certain.

One to three months is a long time to wait for visitors. It’s hard to say when planetariums and science centers will be open again. And, it will be the same long wait for art museums, festivals, and other cultural activities that enrich our lives.

In some places, facilities won’t be reopening as fast as, say, tattoo parlors, bars, and other places that protestors want to see reopen NOW. And, wouldn’t it be cool if protestors could say, “I want the museum and planetarium to open up!”?

I know of one major facility that opened this week, but with hugely restricted activities designed to keep people safe. Their planetarium won’t open until midsummer at earliest. A thriving community of places where we learn about the world and universe is, sadly, shining ghost lights in the darkness for the unforeseeable future

I wish the news were better about our science centers and planetariums. These are hugely important places for people to visit, learn, and enjoy themselves. But, the bigger, more important issue still faces us as COVID-19 continues to race through the population: that we learn to stay home, stay safe, and wait for the day that we can all go out and enjoy our cultural and scientific institutions again.

Before we can do that, populations around the world where the virus is still rampant have bigger fish to fry: fixing supply chain problems, teaching their politicians that this virus should be taken seriously and not as a political football to sway voters to risky choices, and making sure that all who need them have food, medical care, and safe places to recover. We’re all in this together, each experiencing it in different ways. Maybe there’s a lesson in that that we’ll need to learn before we can extinguish the ghost lights and bring life back to domes, theaters, museums, and concert halls.